About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Friday, February 12, 2016

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has rejected a bill, which would require proportional
budgeting from the Ministry of Culture to the Arab community. Minister
of Culture, Miri Regev stated, “I can't accept such a principle that
supports the idea that one-fifth of the population will receive
one-fifth of the budget.

Yousef Jabareen

The bill, which was submitted by Member of Knesset, Dr. Youssef Jabareen on Wednesday, February 10th,
was rejected by a vote of 45 against and 37 for. The bill states that
the Ministry of Culture does not equitably allocate funding to the
different sectors and that the Arab population should not receive less
than 20% which is their percentage of the total population in Israel.
Minister Regev stated that the reasons for her opposition to proposal
are that she can't accept the idea that one-fifth of the population
would get one-fifth of the budget. The Bill was intended to limit the
discretionary power of the Minister over the distribution of funds. It
was submitted in response to her initiative to make allocation of
funding conditional upon loyalty to the state.MK Jabareen presented harsh data that was exposed after The Mossawa
Center and the Committee of the Heads of Arab local Authorities
petitioned for increased funding to the Arab community to close the
large gaps between the Jewish and Arab populations. After the submission
the court ruled that the Ministry of Culture must conduct mapping on
the culture needs in the Arab community. Researcher, Suad Nasser carried
out the mapping, which found that 100% of Arab communities have no
museums, art schools, or cinemas. In 80% of Arab communities there are
no cultural activities. In 92% there is no support for artists from the
Culture Administration, and in 72% of Arab communities there are no
Palestinian art activities or galleries.
A full report from the mapping was presented to the Supreme Court,
which ruled that the Ministry of Culture must submit a plan for the
increase of funding to the Arab community.
This plan has yet to be submitted. Currently the Arab community only receives 3% of the Ministry of Culture’s budget.